It’s an evening in Paris. It’s 1987 and this rock fan who likes to tease the bass, “employed in civil aviation”, is drowning in the hashish vapors of an improvised concert with his friends, “Haitians”. Between two frantic notes of kompa, his friend “hands him a leaflet”. For music lessons. He goes to the school, carries Bonne Nouvelle, it’s there that “we find ourselves doing a two-hour course, to ‘learn how to learn,’ using a booklet signed L. Ron Hubbard “. The creator and “prophet” of Scientology. Then the experience repeats itself, “I wasn’t calculating”. Ludovic, curious, begins reading “Dianetics”, the founding work of the movement. Until one day, pass through the door of the Celebrity Center, in the heart of Paris, a Mecca of the Church of Scientology. “I said to myself, ‘don’t even be afraid’.” Without knowing it, the twenty-something “cool baba” style set foot in a movement that he would only violently leave, twenty years later.
“I ‘worked’ up to 50 hours a week for sciento”
“Knowledge of self, the Universe and Immortality”
Having now become a “suppressive person”, heretic in short, Ludovic Durand has decided to describe the influence. To campaign too, even if it means facing a few threats. He wants to tell about “the destroyed families” but also “the illegal aspect of the work that we provide” with almost no remuneration. Married then divorced twice, father of three children, Ludovic, who became the black sheep of the movement when he went off on a tangent, lost contact with his first son, also in Scientology, 10 years ago. Ties cut, tears in our eyes at the stirring evocation of this brokenness.
And then, “I got into debt”. He recounts the spiral, from the beginning. At the Church, meeting all these individuals who “dress handsome”, impeccable suits, big pats on the shoulder. Him, the son of soldiers, the “a little lost” guy who we begin to trust, who we offer responsibilities. Who is quickly asked to offer his time for the Church. Very quickly, all the evenings and weekends were spent there. And then one day, “well I don’t go to work anymore”. Scientology can take up all the space. “I ‘worked’ up to 50, 60 hours a week.” Paid the minimum wage? ” What ?! less than the RSA yes! » To do what? To study texts to integrate “the staff”, to learn “procedures” on the fingertips. On the large table in the living room, Ludovic opens boxes, extracts from course binders, we take a look at almost incomprehensible sheets. Smokey jargon of pseudo-theses at the crossroads of psychology and philosophy. There is also this “passport”, towards “knowledge of oneself, of the Universe and of Immortality”.
“Purification procedure”
In the obligatory passages, in addition to the “purification procedure” (cocktail of intensive sport, sauna sessions and high – and dangerous – niacin intake), there is also the famous “electrometer”. Strange material that seems like something out of a science fiction film. Purchased at the time for nearly 5,000 euros (by him) when he became an “auditor”, Ludovic then used it “to do his job. » Basically, the detection of reactions in individuals, based on mental images. With the finality claimed by the movement, always, the resolution of problems and the elevation of the human spirit.
In 1996, riddled with debt, Ludovic walked away from the Church “while remaining a Scientologist”. He leaves to “work on the Path for a friend, also a Scientologist”. Then, “he fires me and I go to Flag, Florida, the Mecca of Scientology.” During this week which “cost him a lot”, he met Lisa Marie Presley “the King’s daughter!” » he laughs today. Crosses paths with his former “boss at the Celebrity Centre,” and re-signs for five years, seduced by the “Golden Age of Technology,” a “renewal” movement in the Church.
Remarried, with young children, he moved away from Paris. Normandy first then Charente Maritime. And the Charente. He remains “all in”. Dragging his money problems. Until the day, “one morning I received a message on Facebook from a seasoned ex-auditor”. Who left everything behind. “He tells me he’s a suppressive person but I don’t care, I was happy to find this guy.”
Throughout the discussions, Ludovic discovers another aspect of Scientology. Little by little, awareness dawns, “by searching the internet, a lot”. He discovers the embezzlement, the excesses. Take the field. Then in 2014, a letter informed him that he had also become unwanted. Immediately, his son, a Scientologist, was informed. The links are broken. What does he feel today, in the midst of reconstruction, with a fifth therapy just started? “A lot of anger.” Transformed into courage. “It’s a rare voice, many keep silent for fear of threats. », Underlines Didier Pachoud, president of Gemppi, an association which works to prevent sectarian abuses. Rock’n’roll all the way.
A New Age movement in decline
On April 6, Ludovic was among the small handful of demonstrators present at the inauguration of the imposing (controversial) training center of the Church of Scientology in Saint-Denis, a stone’s throw from the Stade De France. And Olympic structures. A building which is nothing other than “the coffin of Scientology in France”, he mocks, referring to a “movement in clear decline”. “Where they speak of 45,000 members in France, I count no more than 2000,” estimates the Charentais. An opinion shared by Didier Pachoud, president of Gemppi (Study group of thought movements for the prevention of the individual) for whom “this New Age movement is today largely in competition” by other “pseudo-spiritual” trends which are spreading and recruiting, since covid at great speed on the internet.”
